Sunday, September 9, 2012

GELID Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Paste Review

GELID Solutions is well known for their thermal solutions, CPU coolers,
fans, and other computer hardware for both gamers and silent enthusiasts alike.
They focus a lot of their time into creating products that provide maximum cooling capabilities. Today we will be looking at a certain product in particular.
The GC-Extreme thermal compound, used by extreme overclocking enthusiasts. The GC-Extreme has dozens of awards, hopefully we can add our name to that list.

The thermal paste comes packaged in a plastic container with
just the GC-Extreme tube and a thermal paste applicator tool.

The applicator tool is a great accessory because it allows you to evenly spread the thermal paste on your CPU to allow better heat conductivity.

GELID GC-Extreme Specs

Density (g/cm3):

3.73

Net Content (g):

3.5

Thermal conductivity (W/mK):

8.5

Viscosity (Centipoise):

85000

The thermal pastes we are going to use today are the Arctic Silver Alumina, Noctua's NT-H1, Antec Formula 6, GELID Solution GC-Extreme and also GELID's GC2.

Temperature Tests:

Today we are going to be testing the GC-Extreme on the Antec
Kuhler 620 and then we will be testing it on a stock GTX 570. Ambient
temperatures were about 23C and load tests were taken using prime95 on blend. All temps are recorded in

Celsius.

Test setup:

CPU- Intel Core i5 3570K

CPU Cooler- Antec Kuhler 620

Motherboard- ASUS Maximus V Gene

Graphics- NVIDIA GTX 570

Memory- 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws 1600 MHz

HDD- Segate Baracuda

PSU-Antec HCG-620M (620W)

Once we accumulate more thermal paste readings we will add them to the charts above.

The GC-Extreme has great cooling capabilities and is one of
the best thermal pastes I have used thus far. It even
out performs Noctua's premium thermal paste the NT-H1 which is known
for its great cooling capabilities.

Unfortunately we don’t have an abundance of thermal pastes
available so we will just have make due with what we have available. You can
still tell from the few that we have compared it to that the GELID GC-Extreme
is an outstanding thermal paste product. We will be adding new results as we go
along.

The GC-Extreme clearly out performs its opponents where it
matters the most, overclocking. While some thermal pastes beat out the
GC-Extreme when the system is only running at 3.4GHz they are no match for it
when your system is overclocked. Another great thing is how well GELIDS GC-2
performs; it keeps up with the GC-Extreme and also performs slightly better in
some tests. The GC-2 usually comes with their abundance of products like CPU
coolers and VGA coolers.

Testing done with the GTX 570 was similar to how we tested the CPU, we just let the card sit for about 10 minutes, record the temperature, then put the card under full load for another 10 minutes with MSI Kombustor.

Burn-in setting below:

Not many people take into consideration that thermal paste
is a big part of keeping your system running at safe temperatures. With the
GC-Extreme I have faith that my system is in good hands and will last a very long time time. GELID has definitely developed a great and trustable product that is worth trying out.

We gladly give GELID the Pctreviews Gold award for their
GC-Extreme thermal compound.